Commentary: Bears fumble the better Round 1 draft pick to Packers

Thursday

May 8, 2014 at 10:51 PMMay 8, 2014 at 10:51 PM

By Matt TrowbridgeRockford Register Star

The NFL season is four months away, yet the Green Bay Packers have already beaten the Chicago Bears.

The one hole in Green Bay GM Ted Thompson’s resume is a sketchy record in the first-round of the NFL Draft, but Bears third-year GM Phil Emery made it easy for him by gift-wrapping the perfect solution to Green Bay’s biggest problem.

By passing on filling his own.

Alabama’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix was unanimously regarded as the best cover safety in the draft. How much will he help Green Bay? Well, the Packers were the only team in the NFL that did not have a safety intercept a single pass last year.

Most mock drafts had Clinton-Dix going before the Bears picked at No. 14, long before the Packers at No. 21. But he kept falling because the Jets filled their safety need by going with hard-hitting run-stopper Calvin Pryor at No. 18, and the Bears grabbed Virginia Tech cornerback Kyle Fuller at No. 14.

Fuller is good. He was widely viewed as one of the top three cornerbacks in the draft. And he is the most versatile.

He also fills a hole in Chicago’s biggest need: the secondary on the worst defense in Bears history.

But Chicago’s best two returning starters on that defense are cornerbacks Charles Tillman and Tim Jennings.

Their worst two positions on that defense were the two safeties.

If the Bears wanted to improve their run defense, they should have drafted Pryor.

If Chicago wanted to fix the pass defense — which is far more important in today’s NFL — Emery should have drafted Clinton-Dix.

If the Bears wanted a cornerback who can jam receivers at the line and shut teams down on third down, they should have taken Michigan State’s Darqueze Dennard, the top-rated corner on half the draft boards.

There is really only one scenario where Kyle Fuller made the most sense for Chicago at No. 14 — if the Bears didn’t know what they wanted.

That’s because the 6-foot, 190-pound Fuller is so versatile. He is described, basically, as the next Peanut Tillman (minus the uncanny ability to force fumbles).

Fuller has played some safety. But it makes no sense to shoe-horn him into a safety spot that Clinton-Dix or Pryor would have filled perfectly.

Fuller has been said to be almost equally good at playing man-to-man or zone, at playing press coverage or playing off, at tackling and covering, at playing inside or outside.

He’s just not particularly dominant at any of those things.

And Jennings and Tillman, if they stay healthy, block him at least temporarily from a starting cornerback spot on a team that, after signing Jared Allen, is built to win now.

There is one spot available to Fuller to make an immediate impact: nickel corner.

And that is a big spot to fill for Chicago, which has done an exceptional job since Jennings was paired with Tillman four years ago at covering outside receivers but has been one of the worst in the league at covering receivers in the slot.

But it’s simply not as big of a hole to fill as safety was. And has been for a decade.

And it was made even worse by gift-wrapping Clinton-Dix to arch-enemy Green Bay.

Emery has made many good choices for Chicago in his short tenure, including adding possibly the two best receivers in Bears history in his very first season: Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery.

But he has also tried to out-think himself in the first round. First he took Boise State linebacker Shea McClellin and tried to make him a defensive end. Then he took guard Kyle Long, who only started 10 games in college. Long has been good, but even good won’t be enough to make Fuller a hit for Chicago.

He has to be better than Clinton-Dix. If not, the Bears made the wrong pick. Doubly wrong because they handed the right pick to Green Bay.